Burgkmair, Hans the Elder

Burgkmair, Hans the Elder (1473-1531). German painter and designer
of woodcuts.

After learning his trade under Schongauer in Colmar, he had settled
in his native Augsburg by 1498. Before then he is presumed to have been
to Italy, for his paintings, with their warm glow of color, their decorative
Classical motifs, and their intricate spatial composition, show how decisively
he transformed his late Gothic heritage with
Renaissance influence.

Indeed, he occupied a place in Augsburg comparable to that of Dürer
in Nuremberg in introducing the new style. Like Dürer he contributed to
the famous series of woodcuts for the Emperor, the Triumph of Maximilian.
He was also employed to illustrate the Emperor's own writings, the Teuerdank
and Weisskunig, moralizing knightly romances. A certain clarity
of characterization, which is typical of all his works, not least his incisive
portraits, seems to have influenced Hans Holbein
the Younger. His son, Hans Burgkmair the Younger (c.1500-59), was
a painter and engraver.